Brussels - A new U.S. proposal to end a dispute with the European Union over hormone-treated beef by labeling meat as American-produced is not acceptable to the Europeans, EU sources said.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky wrote to European Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan last week with a proposal for ending an argument over the EU's decade-old ban on imports of U.S. beef treated with artificial growth hormones.
Last year, the World Trade Organization, ruling in a case brought by the U.S. and Canada, said the EU's ban ran counter to a global food safety pact. Washington has threatened retaliation if the EU does not meet the WTO's May 13 deadline for compliance.
With U.S. cattle producers seething over hundreds of millions of dollars of lost exports, the dispute has the potential to equal a damaging transatlantic trade spat over bananas, in which the U.S. has threatened to slap punitive duties on $520 million of EU exports.
In the letter, Glickman and Barshefsky voiced concern about “the status of the European Union's implementation” of the WTO ruling and offered to work with the EU on “a mutually acceptable solution.”
“We very much want to avoid another situation in which the United States must consider exercising other appropriate WTO rights when compliance is not achieved,” they said, referring to the U.S. retaliation threat.
They said the U.S. was prepared to label all beef exported to the EU with labels such as “USDA Choice,” “USDA Prime” or “USDA approved beef.”
“We are eager to begin substantive meetings soon to explore our proposal and other possible solutions. We urge you to join in this effort immediately,” they wrote.
Brittan's spokesman Nigel Gardner said the proposal would have to be looked at. But he said it did not really address the central question because it did not propose labeling beef as hormone-treated.
However, he said the letter was “clearly an opening bid from the Americans” in attempts to resolve the dispute, adding that the EU was keen to talk.
A European Commission source said the U.S. proposal was “clearly unacceptable to us in its present form.” Any label used would have to refer to hormones, he said.
The beef labels proposed by the U.S. in the letter have already been approved under the EU's voluntary beef labeling regime. From next January, the EU will in any case require beef from all countries to carry a label of origin.
Last year, the EU argued that the WTO ruling simply meant it had to do new risk assessment studies to see if hormone-treated beef posed any risks to humans.
But last week, the EU conceded that the studies will not be completed by the May 13 deadline.
Last Wednesday, the EU's Executive Commission proposed that the EU consider three options as a stopgap solution to the dispute until the scientific studies were ready.
The options were compensating the U.S. and Canada for lost beef exports, making the import ban temporary, or ending the ban and ordering labeling of hormone-treated beef.
The U.S. say the use of hormones in beef is perfectly safe and the EU must lift the import ban.
But the European Commission is treading carefully. Food safety concerns are running high in the 15-nation EU following the mad cow crisis and media reports about possible health dangers from genetically modified crops.
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